In context aware applications, one of the important criteria is often the “freshness” of data. “Freshness” relates to how recently the piece of data was determined. As data ages, it becomes less reliable because the environment may have changed since the data was acquired. In location aware applications, the freshness of the location information can be very important, especially since the user may be mobile and their location can change over time. Navigation systems used in vehicles provide users with visual and audio updates where the data content changes as the location changes. No existing system is known where a characteristic or quality of the presentation data itself changes to reflect a lack of freshness of location information. Some devices, such as small portable electronic devices such as camera phones having multiple functions can present visual and audio updates and can even perform navigational functions. In such instances, the devices might at least be temporarily dedicated to such navigational functions and essentially present updated data to indicate changes in location. Operating in other functions, such multifunctional devices fail to provide a freshness indication of location data in as unobtrusive a manner as possible so as to minimize the user's disruption for their current task. For example, in a standby mode where only “wallpaper” might be viewed on a display or in an MP3 playing or other source playing mode, no indication of the freshness of the location data is found in existing systems.